Opinion Don’t count him out

Actually,Gadkari’s secret ambition is to contest for Parliament from his home town,Nagpur,if his party gives the go ahead. This was one reason why he had such a huge number of guests for his son’s wedding in Nagpur last year. Nagpur is not exactly a safe seat for the BJP. For the last few decades,the Congress has won consistently from the city. The only exception was in 1996 when Banwarilal Purohit was elected from here on a BJP ticket.

Abbottabad operation

Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar openly described it as a “conspiracy” while others in the NCP privately accuse Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan of an Abbottabad-style operation. The Congress’s ally in Maharashtra is fuming because the CM dissolved the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development’s (NABARD) 44-member board,25 of whom are affiliated to the NCP,with such lightning speed that neither Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee nor Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar in Delhi got wind of it. Ajit Pawar was in effective control of the bank. NABARD quietly handed over its 169-page critical report to the RBI in Mumbai. Its report stated that the bank was near bankruptcy and instead of benefitting farmers,it was misused for sanctioning loans to the sugar sector and for other investments. The RBI on May 5 recommended dissolution of the board and called for the appointment of administrators to run the bank. The CM wasted no time,announcing names of two seasoned bureaucrats as administrators. Chavan wanted to send across the message that he is sincere in his efforts to tackle corruption in the state. Some powerful state politicians had viewed the apex bank as a milch cow for bailing out troubled projects without any adherence to rules.

Power Trip

Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar hoped to travel on the same aircraft as Manmohan Singh,Sonia Gandhi and P Chidambaram to attend the funeral of Arunachal Chief Minister Dorjee Khandu’s at Itanagar. Aiyar was known to be close to Khandu,but he was informed at the last minute that he could not be accommodated. Instead,Congress MP Naveen Jindal took his place. The Jindal family is interested in setting up power plants in the northeast and the new Arunachal Chief Minister Jarbom Gamlin retains the power portfolio.

VS’s last hurrah

The Kerala assembly poll was a fight not between the Congress and the CPI(M),but between the Congress and former CM V S Achuthanandan. The CPI(M) frowns on personalised politics but in this election it had perforce to let him take centrestage. Life size figures of the CM were seen all over the state and Congress leaders targeted only the CM. The strategy backfired. The incumbent government managed to turn the tables on the Opposition on the corruption issue. While decades old corruption cases blew up in the face of the Congress during the campaign,the party was unable to point a finger at the CM personally. Rahul Gandhi’s dig at Achuthanandan’s age was rebutted by his Amul baby retort. Thanks to the popular 87-year-old leader,what should have been a runaway victory for the Congress,ended up as a whisker thin majority.

In the dark

The Chief Secretary of Chhattisgarh phoned the Secretary,Planning Commission,Sudha Pillai,to confirm whether reports that Binayak Sen,who has been charged with sedition by the Chhattisgarh government,had indeed been included in the Planning Commission’s steering committee for health in the 12th Plan. Pillai expressed ignorance of the appointment. Her husband,home secretary G K Pillai,was also in the dark. The Home Ministry had to speak to deputy chairperson of Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwallia for a confirmation. Planning Commission member Syeda Hameed acknowledges that it was her personal decision to include Sen.

Electing to opt out

Kalaignar TV,owned by the Karunanidhi family,was so put off by the results coming in from Tamil Nadu,that midway through Friday morning,it switched from election news to telecasting a movie.